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No… I had found a site with pics relating to the real case (including a photo of him), but I don’t want to cause him any trouble. I would be really interested in what he has to say about the whole thing though. Maybe he’ll write a book one day…
I’d be most interested in hearing his side of the story. It seems like everbody else connected with the event has been given decades to share their version except for the one person who might be able to shed some real light on what happened.
Well, I was going to P.M. acouple people and see if they had the link I posted a couple of years ago to a copy of the original diary available online.
SInce it’s already “out in the open” I’ll just ask.Rob has made it pretty clear he doesn’t wish to be bothered. He’s an old man now. Easily in his 70’s so it’s probably best to respect that.
Anyone?
I believe attempts have been made to contact him and he very definitely made it clear that he does not wish to discuss or even think of his little prank from the past…
(Which is quite admirable: many people would have treated this as a chance for a quick and soulless cashing-in…)
So Vess you think it was an adolescent prank?
Although I believe spiritually in a great many things I’m curious too. One of the articles I’ve read was an interview with a man who was at the time of the events (supposedly) Ronalds closest childhood friend and who casts more than a little doubt on the authenticity of the claim of possession.
Still, that doesnt make Blatty’s book or Friedkin’s movie anything less than great 🙂
I know you were talking to Vess, but I’ll stick my big nose in, if you don’t mind. Having read a little about possession, I have never come across a case that matches Blatty’s depiction. Even in his portrait of possession, there was still enough doubt that Karras doesn’t think it is genuine, although it meets the rules set down in the Roman Ritual.
I relaly don’t know what “possessed” the church authorities to permit an exorcism of the “Exorcist Boy”, since according to stuff I’ve read, there were not very strong indicators of the presence of a truly alien, external, nonmaterial, malevolent spirit entity.
Vess and I differ slightly here: Vess thinks the whole thing was a case of a prank played on naive people, whereas I don’t dismiss the multiple-witness accounts of paranormal activity.
But even with paranormal activity, the “demon” who “possessed” the boy is, to me, unconvincing. Of course, “the demon is a liar”, so if there was indeed a possessing spirit, it could have been playing dumb. Dumb in the sense that it can’t survive comparison to the relatively preturnatural sophistication of Blatty’s novelistic demon.
Felicitas Goodman’s book “The Exorcism of Anneliese Michel” is the best I have read on modern possession. She explains the “demon” as a series of neurological problems combined with mis-prescription, and mis-diagnosis, plus clerical naivete’.
So I tend to regard the case as some mental illness, some deception, and some paranormalia. But I, for one, just don’t see any strong evidence of a truly supernatural event or personage.
You can stick your big nose in any time! You always make great contributions, so thanks.
I’ll look for the Goodman book.
I’ve just gotten to a chapter in the Travers book that discusses the realities of possesion, Hunkelers case and the belief that even in the 70’s Fr. John Nicola (advisor on the film and Assist. Dir. of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception) and the Catholic Church that mental illness was usually a more likely suspect for possessed behaviour as opposed to any paranormal or supernatural element. They also make kinda the flip side argument “well then doesn’t that maybe make all mentall ill people possessed?” by recounting a story by a witness at a Maryland asylum during an otherwise peaceful day until a priest shows up and all Hell breaks loose. That I didn’t buy. Religious hysteria I’m sure has a nice home in the minds of some asylum bound people.
I often wondered if Ronald Hunkeler has remained silent all these years because if he were to reveal the truth it would be like the ultimate “Boy who cried Wolf”
Re: the Maryland asylum inmates’ reaction to the priest – I think Blatty cites a similar case where a priest went to give Communion to a Catholic patient in a mental ward. He was not wearing priestly clothing, but he was carrying a pyx (a small container for the Hosts) hidden on his person.
According to Blatty, a significant number of patients reacted strongly as the priest passed thru the ward, tho’ he was dressed in civvies. Purportedly, they were able to sense the “Eucharistic presence of Christ” in the hidden pyx. To me this sounds like aggrandizing, edifying urban legendry. Also, as you mention, it hints at the superstitious, nasty notion that mentally ill people “have demons”…
Only he knows for certain what it was, but based on everything I’ve read about the case – especially the telling opinions about R. H. as a young boy – I’m 99% certain it was a deliberate prank. However, he most likely never counted on the outside attention that it brought – I doubt he thought priests would ever be involved. (And I can bet that he never thought James Bond would exorcise him one day! 😉
I feel that his refusal to speak of or even in any way return to the issue is in fact very telling…
Apart from that, the only other possibility that I could see is a hysteric breakdown… in a way, combined result of mental anguish, usual teenage angst and the personal problems that he had at the time…
Speaking of Goodman, I have to get to reading her one day, too. 🙂 I bought her book soon after the film came out, but at the time all I could get (and did get) was a xerox copy sent from the university where she used to teach – and I never liked reading books in such half-form, so to say… 🙂 I hear it’s been reissued as an actual book since then, so perhaps I should simply get that…
Yeah, I don’t know if there is a current copy available… I got a dog-eared edition at a used book store maybe 20 or more years ago…
I live very close to the house in Cottage City — I just drove past it the other day. The current owners have done a considerable amount of sprucing up. The misidentified location in Mt. Rainier is only a mile or two away, and I went past there as well — a park has been built on the vacant lot where the house once stood.
Ironically, I’m on a business trip in St. Louis, about five miles from the Roanoke house where Hunkeler stayed during the hospital.
Michael Hunkeler lives about ten minutes from my mother-in-law’s house, and Ronald is nearby as well. I’ve never bothered them out of courtesy, despite close proximity to my home.
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